Baseball Pitching Drills – A Complete Guides

A good pitcher needs to differentiate themselves from peers by consistently hitting their target spot. He needs to show his command for pitches. To achieve this, the pitcher should to do more baseball pitching drills for accuracy.

For accurate pitches, he needs to practice hard on getting the ball over the home plate at a desired level. The pitcher’s control for pitches is important to achieving a desirable pitching accuracy.

Coaches need to engage their pitchers numerous but helpful pitching drills. The most important thing in pitching is finding the target and keeping your opponent guessing on your next pitches.

Baseball Pitching Drills

Bullseye Drill

In this drill, the coach sets up a square bullseye into padded walls using a tape. This square where the bullseye has been set is further divided into five mini-squares. The sizes of the bullseye heavily depend on different player factors including the age and the player’s ability.

After all these setups have been made, the coach then allows each pitcher o throw an average of 4 pitches before reducing the size of the bullseye. The coach is at liberty to decide the number of back to back throws. This helps the pitcher to better develop their focus on target

Kneeling Partner Pitching drill

Here, the coach pairs his players — two players wearing baseball gloves and one ball available to each pair. During this, each of these players kneels down facing their partner at the coach’s desired distance. Increase the distance as the drills progresses. Then the partners can start pitching in turns.

In instances where the “catcher” catches the ball without lifting their arm, the pitch will be considered good. To determine the quality of pitches, the catcher assigns a point to the pitcher whenever he goes out to get the pitched ball.

The hire the points a pitcher has, the poorer they are in pitching and therefore need to do more pitching drills. This drill helps the players develop a better management of their arm strength and power.

Picher Line pitching drill

This drill is meant to improve on the ball release point of a pitcher. Players should be paired into 2s. Let one act as the catcher. The pitching ground need to be level. Use any material that works as a home plate to help the pitcher focus on the right path.

The coach then allows the pitchers to throw about 15 pitches for any one type of pitch; whether curve ball, fast ball, changeup and slider. This practice helps the pitcher to mentally master their release point for different types of pitches. Increase the pitching distance with the experience of the pitcher.

Pitching Control Drill

Let the catcher position himself in the normal pitcher’s plate-home plate distance with a batter in the batting box. Let the batter switch positions from left to right batting box. The batter should assume their normal standing stances while in the batting box.

Let the pitcher make numerous pitches as the catcher announces them as either balls or strikes. During this drill, the catcher needs to be in full protective catchers gears, at least wear a helmet. This practice helps pitchers to Build a uniform pitching motion. Get used to different batters’ striking zones. Get experience of pitching with batter in the box

The 20 and 4 Drill

This is a drill that is usually meant for young pitchers to work on their control and concentration. It mainly emphasizes on coaches focusing on smooth throws. It discourages the youngsters from throwing the ball at a full speed. The pitchers are allowed to pitch from very small distances.

However, the distances should be increased with time. In this drill, accuracy rather than speed is preferred. At this stage, the ratio of strikes to ball should be 20:4, failure to which the pitcher will be required to start over again. Caution should be exercised to avoid overworking the pitcher.

Balance Point Pitching Drill

This drill seeks to help pitchers develop a good balance when pitching. In this drill, let each pitcher make his wind-up then delivery while making a stop at the point of balance, holding it for about 2 seconds. They can then continue with the motion.

Depending on the position of the pitcher after pausing his motion, the coach can advice him accordingly. When a pitcher opens his arm very early during pitching, they make their arm fail to get the proper pitching height thus making the ball go astray. This drill can help pitchers get balance necessary for accurate deliveries.

Goalpost Drill

This drill conditions the pitcher’s lower body for pitching. In this baseball pitching drills for accuracy, the coaches should seek to ensure that the pitcher also involves the lower part of their body in the whole pitching process. To execute this, the pitcher should stand on the mound opening his feet wide more than his shoulders.

He then raises his arms making them resemble a goal-post. Let the pitcher make a throw while using his back feet as the starting point, as the elbows remains in a raised position. Its good noting that, for any successful and accurate delivery, one needs to have full coordination of the whole body.

Wrist-snap pitching Drill

This drill is important to pitchers as it helps them become better in ball snapping while delivering the ball from the front side of the body, make a follow throw in the process and take a defensive stance after delivering the pitch.

To execute this, the pitcher should wear his glove; kneel down using one knee and the hand with the glove rest on the knee. The couch need to raise the pitchers throwing arm and it should be parallel to the ground. The coach should have two more persons to help him hold a piece of string or cloth.

The pitchers then should make a normal windup, while slapping the piece of cloth held above to mark a delivery. The coach should then assess for good motion, a balance as well as return to defensive position.

Pitching Drills for young baseball players

Final note

For any of these baseball pitching drills for accuracy to have a significant impact on the pitcher delivering an accurate pitch, the coach needs to keep increasing the difficulty as the pitcher tends to master this skill. As pitchers focus on accuracy, they should also work on their speed. A few tweaks to the pitcher can do the magic.

MTAB

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